Thomas P. Rausch

Catholics and Pentecostals: Troubled History, New Initiatives

Catholics and Pentecostals in their various expressions—classical, charismatic, and Neo-Pentecostal—constitute about 75 percent of the total number of Christians today. And Pentecostals continue to grow in number. While the relations between the two traditions have often been troubled and serious theological differences remain, particularly in the area of ecclesiology, Pentecostals are beginning to show a new interest in ecumenism, and new initiatives on both sides are promising.

Occasional Eucharistic Hospitality: Revisiting the Question

The current Roman Catholic discipline regarding sacramental sharing does not seem to express the degree of communion that now exists between and among the churches. After examining the theological implications of the concept of communio, some developments in canon law, and some recent diocesan guidelines, the article asks whether the Roman Catholic Church might offer occasional eucharistic hospitality to some non-Catholic Christians, noting that eucharistic hospitality is different from intercommunion in that it is offered not to churches but to individuals in particular circumstances.

Has the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Exceeded its Authority

The declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus, has frequently been misunderstood. It does not assert that Catholicism is the sole path to salvation and it has a number of important points to affirm. Yet some of its judgments in regard to other churches may go beyond what was actually taught by Vatican II. If this is so, the congregation has exceeded its authority and runs the risk of closing off theological dialogue.

A New Ecumenism? Christian Unity in a Global Church

The author asks if a new ecumenism might be emerging, one that can bring the burgeoning new Pentecostal-charismatic-independent churches of the Global South, most of them non-liturgical or sacramental, together with the traditional churches of Europe and North America that continue to lose members. The article assesses the recent statement of the World Council of Churches, The Church: Toward a Common Vision, seen by many of the new churches as too Western and Eurocentric, and asks if we need a new way of envisioning the ecumenical future.

The Present State of Ecumenism.

ABSTRACT: The 500th Anniversary of the Reformation offers an occasion to reflect on the progress of the ecumenical movement, now over 100 years old. If a new atmosphere of respect and cooperation exists between many churches, there are new obstacles to reconciliation in the areas of demographics, institutional concerns, and theology, leading some to speak of a period of stagnation or “ecumenical winter.” The WCC’s convergence text, The Church: Towards a Common Vision , is a promising document, but it is seen by many of the “new” churches of the Global South as too Western and Eurocentric. This essay concludes with some suggestions for moving ahead of the present impasse. RESUMO : O 500o aniversario da Reforma oferece uma ocasiao para refletir sobre o progresso do movimento ecumenico, hoje com mais de 100 anos. Se, por um lado, existe uma nova atmosfera de respeito e cooperacao entre muitas igrejas, por outro, existem novos obstaculos a reconciliacao nas areas da demografia, dos interesses institucionais e da teologia, levando alguns a falar de um periodo de estagnacao ou “inverno ecumenico”. O texto de convergencia do Conselho Mundial de Igrejas (CMI), A Igreja : para uma visao comum , e um documento promissor, mas considerado por muitas das “novas” igrejas do Hemisferio Sul como demasiado Ocidental e eurocentrico. O ensaio conclui com algumas sugestoes para sair do impasse atual.

Book Review: A Council for the Global Church: Receiving Vatican II in History. By Massimo FaggioliA Council for the Global Church: Receiving Vatican II in History. By FaggioliMassimo. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Pp. ix + 349.

thus far, leaving such issues aside in favor of a more homogeneous, often praxisfocused agenda” (83). This may be the most original contribution of the whole study and signals a necessary development in interreligious dialogue. In the third and last part, “Some Questions and Issues,” P. explores a biblical basis for interreligious dialogue in which he singles out the ninth (or eighth) commandment, not to bear false witness against our neighbor (112), and the example of Jesus with the woman at the well (113). Misunderstanding other faiths, speaking disparagingly of them, says P., can amount to bearing false witness against them. Jesus’ s dialogue with the Samaritan woman suggests an openness to the religious other. In the light of this biblical witness, P. suggests we need to be confident in “the God who precedes us, who is there before us” (126). P. has referred earlier to Origen’s notion of “seeds of the Word “that are germinating across creation. God is before and ahead of those who go out proclaiming the good news” (95). There is much that is good and helpful in P’s work. His treatment of interreligious prayer based on actual experiments adds some welcome concreteness. A weakness might be an excessive multiplication of divisions and subdivisions of categories and models that can become bewildering. Perhaps a simplification of categories would allow room for some concrete examples from the author’s obviously rich experience in the area of interreligious dialogue.

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issue from that of nature/grace to person/grace. Schillebeeckxs contribution to the debate is examined in the context of his study of Max Secklers retrieval of Aquinass instinctus fidei, with whose interpretation of the latter he disagrees, as he does with Secklers own questionable understanding of the supernatural existential. Finally, D. finds promise in Baltazars effort to transpose the debate from the scholastic category of substance to those of process philosophy. In spite of their differences, all these authors share a common starting point wherein D. sees the real significance and fruit of the debate: against the counter-Reformation theology of gratuity, they all begin with the actual historical order of grace, indeed, the grace of Christ, rather than with an abstract notion of human nature, and they see all else in function of the primacy of grace. D. sees two challenges still outstanding as the debate continues. One is to broaden the anthropocentric focus so as to include the whole realm of creation in the order of grace. The other comes from Mark Taylors doctoral dissertation, published as God is Love, which argues in the name of process logic and coherence that to be truly Rahnerian Rahner must be a process theologian. Rahners dialectical approach rejects any univocal logic, process or otherwise, which makes God part of the larger whole which God must both create and grace in order to be God. D.s seeming attraction to process thought acknowledges its problems with the gratuity of grace and the sovereignly free God of Christian tradition. Whatever the outcome of the debate, his book has made a valuable contribution.

Book Review: Infallibility on Trial: Church, Conciliarity and CommunionInfallibility on Trial: Church, Conciliarity and Communion. By BermejoLuis M., S.J. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1992. pp. vi + 402.

Some ten years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, in a perceptive article entitled &dquo;What Went Wrong?&dquo; the American Church historian and commentator Martin Marty pointed to the Council’s failure to provide a new rationale for what he called the Church’s &dquo;service ranks&dquo;, its priests and religious, as constituting a major problem. The Council, he argued, gave new morale to the episcopacy in its treatment of the episcopal office. And it had a great deal to say about what it meant to be a lay person in the Church. &dquo;But,&dquo; he wrote, &dquo;no fresh rationales for being a priest or a religious emerged, while the old ones

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takes on a particular theological colour. We presume that the Church has always been one, or always been many. Protestants often presume the latter. Because they start from the fact of a divided Christianity, many Protestants, particularly those in the great confessional traditions, tend to understand the Church as a plurality of separate confessions. Christian unity from this perspective is often imaged in terms of the model of reconciled diversity.’ The Church of tomorrow will be an ecumenical community of Churches which maintain their own confessional identities and structures while re-establishing communion in preaching, eucharistic sharing, ministry, and service. On the other hand, those in the Catholic tradition generally look back

Priesthood Today: From Sacral to Ministerial Model

The year 1980 has seen Catholics and Lutherans coming together throughout the world for ajoint observance of the 450th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. How different was the climate in 1530, when at the request of the Emperor Charles V, the territorial princes and electors belonging to the Lutheran reform movement presented to the imperial assembly at Augsburg a statement of their beliefs and practices. This statement, the Confessio Augusfuna (CA) or, Augsburg Confession was intended by its author, Philip Melanchthon, to be an expression of the faith of the universal Church, and thus a basis for a reconciliation between the Lutheran Reformers and the Roman Church. The document states specifically that “the dispute and dissension are concerned chiefly with various traditions and abuses” {CA 21). Unfortunately, the attempt to bring about unity failed, the dissension hardened into schism, and the Augsburg Confession emerged as the normative confession of faith of the Lutheran churches. As a concrete step towards the creation of a broad, common base of trust between Catholics and Lutherans, a proposal that the Catholic Church recognize the Augsburg Confession as a testimony of catholic, ecclesial faith was made by the Catholic theologian Vinzenz Pfnur to the International Lutheral-Roman Catholic Working Group in Rome in 1974.’ The purpose of this article is to explore athe implications of this proposal. We will consider, first, the Catholic character of the Augsburg Confession; second, some questions that would be raised from a Roman Catholic viewpoint in respect to a recognition of the Augsburg Confession by the Catholic Church; and third, some future directions and perspectives emerging from the Lutheran Catholic dialogue.